living through the ghosts
by EvaCybele
Summary: After two years apart, Akihiko and Shinjiro talk about the girl they both loved. Post p4a, p3p female protagonist AU.


Aki had been back in Port Island for two weeks before he finally wandered into Hagakure on one of Shinjiro's days off. Sure, that mess in Inaba had taken some time to clean up, and no doubt Mitsuru wanted reports in fucking triplicate or some shit, but two weeks after being gone for almost two years stank of Aki avoiding him for some reason. It was a new sensation, since usually it was Shinji himself doing the avoiding, but that experience had given him the patience to wait for Aki to figure his shit out himself. Sometimes you just can't rush things, especially for someone as awkward and socially defective as Akihiko Sanada.

Shinjiro had almost stopped keeping an eye out for his wayward best friend, and was just enjoying his ramen when a tall, broad form slid onto the stool next to him and said "I'll have what he's having." A look out of the corner of his eye confirmed that yep, it was Aki, and yes, he was wearing a shirt like a normal human being, and no, he had not eaten a single thing that didn't contain protein in the last two years, judging by how much muscle mass he'd put on. Shinji almost felt small next to him, which was new, and more irritating than he'd expected.

It wasn't until he had his bowl in front of him that Aki finally cleared his throat and mumbled an awkward, "Well, I'm back."

__Aki, you fucking weirdo.__ "Yeah, I noticed."

"Oh. Uh, did Mitsuru tell you?"

"Well, that, and the fact that you've been sitting next to me for about ten minutes without saying anything, like a moron." Shinjiro shook his head and took a bite, then sighed. "Welcome back."

Aki rubbed a hand over his hair and down the back of his neck, a nervous habit he'd picked up sometime when they were in middle school. "There was something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

Shinjiro Aragaki considered himself a very patient man, but his normally-straightforward best friend hemming and hawing was grating on his last nerve. "Just spit it out, Aki."

"It's about Minako." It came out in a rush, like he was ripping a band-aid off an old wound, and wanted it done as quickly as possible.

The ache, two years old but feeling as fresh as the day he'd run up the stairs to the roof of Gekkoukan to find her unconscious in Aigis's arms, squeezed around his chest and made it hard to breathe. Of course that two-year training trip had been about her; Aki's reaction to loss was always to throw himself into training, trying to convince himself that if only he'd been stronger, he could protect everyone he ever loved. It was a kid's reaction, immature and stupid.

Shinji envied him, a little, the ability to sublimate all of his guilt and grief and helpless fury into something physical, instead of letting it fester.

The tightness in his chest made it hard to speak, but he managed to force the words out past the pain. "What about her?"

"I didn't know about you and her until," here his voice cracked a little, like he was thirteen again and the only girl he ever thought about was his dead little sister, "well… after. Junpei told me. If I'd known, I wouldn't have-"

"__That's__ what this is about? You think I'm secretly harboring some kind of bullshit grudge because you dated her while I was in a fucking __coma__? God, Aki, you're such a dumbass."

The boxer looked stunned by his outburst, and judging by the sudden hush in the restaurant, he wasn't the only one. "I-"

Shinjiro cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. "Listen, because this is the only time we're gonna have this discussion. I don't hold anything against you that you and Mina were a thing, okay? I knew her for what, a month? And I knew you were fucking head-over-heels about her from the get-go, just too stupid to figure it out for yourself, so hell, I'm glad that you dated her, for both of your sakes."

Aki just sat there, fiddling with his chopsticks, like he was trying to decide if he wanted to say what was on his mind or not. It took him a minute, but when he finally opened his mouth, his voice was quiet. "If you knew, even before I did, then why…"

Guilt temporarily overwhelmed the grief, churning into a mixture that he'd spent too damn many years wallowing in. "I didn't mean for things to go the way they did. I didn't expect to live past that full moon, and I didn't want to get too close to anyone else. Bad enough that you'd be a mess afterwards, and Mitsuru too. But Mina, well. You know how she was. She had a way of digging her heels in and refusing to back down. I tried to push her away, but she wouldn't let me. I think, maybe she knew, somehow, that we were coming up on the end, for both of us. That she had to make the most of what time she had."

"She always did have a way of seeing more than she should have." Aki's shoulders slumped, and he stared into his untouched ramen like it held all the secrets of the universe.

"Yeah. She did. You know she's the one who found my pocket watch?"

"The one that saved your life?"

"Yeah. Looked for the damn thing for days, but mention it to her once and then she comes traipsing into the dorm like it's no big deal."

Truth was that she'd saved him in more ways than just that one, that her brightness had hauled him enough out of the morass of guilt and self-loathing he'd been mired in to even want to live again. That part he kept to himself, though. It, like that night that she'd dragged him up to his room and refused to leave, were too personal to share even with the man he'd loved like a brother for the entirety of his remembered life.

Shinjiro took a deep breath and held it, striving for some sort of calm. It had helped that he'd always looked at their relationship as if it had an expiration date. Aki had had no such comfort - according to Mitsuru, when he finally figured out he was in love, he'd gone all out, not only hoping for but planning for their future together. No doubt he'd used it as a way to deal with the upcoming end of the world, but that wouldn't make it any easier when they'd won, costing Minako her life in the process. "But like I said, I'm glad that you two had each other. She needed you, and you needed her. I'm glad that you could make her happy. As far as I'm concerned, we're good."

Aki cleared his throat and nodded, and Shinji pretended that he didn't seen how glassy his eyes were, or hear how much his voice wavered. "Yeah. Yeah, we're good."

The two men sat and ate their noodles in silence, the specter of yet another dead girl lingering in the space between them.


End file.
